Time for Tunisia


This month, I found myself intrigued by a couple of Tunisian recipes in my latest issue of Food & Wine magazine."Tunisia...," I thought, "where the heck is Tunisia?" This is a fairly embarrassing admission, as I like to think I have a good general sense of world geography ... but I'm moving past the chagrin with a heartening feeling of having learned something new. Africa is a big continent, and until this month's cooking challenge, we had only explored Senegal, Morocco, Ethiopia and Tanzania. We found Tunisian cuisine to be a refreshing delight after May's somewhat disappointing Georgian fare. (Sorry again, Georgia!)

The grocery bag, with green, frilly, leafy-ness, made the cashier exclaim about its beauty.The recipe ingredients alone were exciting. Anise fronds! Chile peppers! A plethora of vegetables! And an ingredient called bharat, (dried rosebuds rubbed through a sieve and mixed with ground cinnamon) which I didn't know how to find, but luckily, happened to have a bottle of rose water handy and just mixed that with some cinnamon.

Pretty vegetables and herbs!

We found all the dishes had complex flavors and pleasing texture variations.

                                                         The Menu:

Couscous with Anise, Red Peppers and Garlic 
Those are red peppers on top. Patrick thought they were big slabs of sashimi!

  Tagine
Delicious mixture of lamb, gruyere cheese and  3 cups fresh parsley, among other things!
        

Turmeric Scented Potato Stew 
And dates...Our two favorite dishes, together.

                               

Marzipan Filled Dates
So simple, and is a close second place for Most Enjoyed Dessert. (First prize, of course, goes to the unmatched Cambodian Ginger Bananas!)

Mint Tea
According to this Tunisia website, "This is poured, from a height, so as to create a froth." Our tea turned out decidedly UN-frothy, but was a nice complement to the meal, anyway.

Both Patrick and I enjoyed exploring the flavors of Tunisia, and I increased my geographical knowledge. Now to plan for July's meal...

Eating Our Way Through Portland


We love Portland, Oregon. We love it so much that, instead of embarking on a more exotic trip to Montreal this summer, we jumped at the chance to head back to the land of food carts, bustle-y sidewalks and painted signs on buildings that admonish the population to "Keep Portland Weird."

We ate... a lot. Despite our determined, enthusiastic enjoyment of all the Portland cuisine we could find in five days, I only managed to gain one pound... because we also walked a LOT.

Pretzel with mustard and cheese at Deschute's

We walked to all our favorite spots, like the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, or OMSI, as it's usually called, we walked to Washington Park with the amazing Rose and Japanese Gardens, we walked to Powell's Books (where I spent at least half an hour drooling over the travel/food memoirs) and we walked to the Saturday Market.

Testing our boat-building skills at OMSI

Tired feet in the Japanese Garden

But, mostly, we walked from one food venue to the next. Every trip brings an opportunity to find a restaurant with food from a country that we haven't marked off on our world map. (Sadly, the two we enjoyed from the last Portland trip, featuring Indonesian and delicious Turkish doner kebab, are gone.) Patrick did a little research on Urban Spoon, and discovered a food cart  with South African Indian food.

Fortunately, my incipient bridge-crossing-panic-attack never fully blossomed and we made the long, humid trek to Mum's Kitchen without incident.

Mum FORCED us to sample all the dishes before she allowed us to order...

We ate in a tin-shed!

Delicious!

My favorite meal of the whole trip was here, at  PBJ's. Yep, another food cart! Who knew grilled peanut butter and jelly could be so magical? Patrick got the Spicy Thai and I enjoyed the Oregonian. Blue cheese on a peanut butter and jelly?!! I had to try it and I'm glad I did.

Some other Portland highlights...

Boba at the Saturday Market.

 Boba, with its amazing, chewy balls of tapioca is readily available in Salt Lake, (I recommend Cafe d'Bolla) but these were just what we needed on a hott-ish Portland morning!

Little Big Burger

Little Big Burger, recommended by my cousin Adam's adorable wife, Amy, has only 6 items on the menu. Because who would want anything besides their burgers and truffle oil fries?

Drinking Chocolate at Cacao

Cacao was a dream come true. We drank our cup of slightly spicy, thick, drinking chocolate with something close to reverence.

Bedtime Snack- Old Dirty B**tard

Finally, a trip to Portland would not be complete without treats from Voodoo Doughnuts. Happily we waited in line for only 15 minutes, unlike the traumatic visit last time with the hour long wait, the unruly children in front of us who kept hopping on my feet and causing mayhem and their truly, truly ineffectual mother.."Johnny, if you do that again, we're leaving!"... over and over until the little rascals finally got their undeserved doughy deliciousness.

Thank you for the food, Portland! I already can't wait to visit again.

Georgia...the country, y'all

Last night we finally made our May country meal. In A Taste for Adventure, Anik See detailed her journey to Georgia, and we realized that the countries in that region of the world are greatly underrepresented on our cuisine-tracking world map.

 The Menu


Sabza-Kourma PilauMutton and Vegetable Pilaf


Alma DolmasyStuffed Apples

Khachapuri
Cheese Bread

Adzhapsandali
Vegetables similar to Ratatouille

This is what Patrick did while I made our meal. Usually we cook together, but yesterday I gave him a break!

Georgian food turned out to be perfect for my new High Blood Pressure diet; lots of vegetables and not much salt. Most of the recipes I found seemed to call for a lot of mutton and things that can be grown in a home garden. (Not knowing where to find mutton, I used lamb.) You'll notice a lack of dessert on the menu. The one I found, Milk Sherbet, had a confusing recipe.

Milk Sherbet

Note:

Azeri people often end their meal by eating sherbet.

Ingredients:

30 grams sugar
70 grams water
100 grams milk

Directions:

1. Boil water. Add sugar, and stir until dissolved. Cool.
2. Boil milk separately, cool, and add to the sherbet.

Really? Is sherbet in Georgia just boiled sugar water mixed with boiled milk? I suspect there may be a freezing step missing. Most of the recipes from this, usually reliable, library database, Culturegrams, seemed to have incomplete recipe steps, such as; "cook lamb until it's done." This poor recipe oversight may have been the reason we did not enjoy the Mutton and Vegetable Pilaf very much.

Cheese bread...this is supposed to be a square...I've found it's difficult to cook sometimes in Patrick's place. Guys don't often seem to have things on hand like food processors or saffron...or enough space to roll out dough!

Lamb stuffed apples

Spooning caramelized onions on the apples.

The apples and cheese bread were the highlights of this meal. I don't want to hurt Georgia's feelings, but, sadly, this was not one of our favorite eating experiences. The food wasn't bad, just a little blah.

Next month we will post from Portland, where exotic restaurants abound!

Iran in April!

Persian cuisine...yum, yum! The kids, including Cameron's adorable girlfriend, Kayeli, got to join us for this meal exploration. They gamely tried everything (although, there really weren't any foods that were too exotic to their American tastebuds and sensibilities.) Unfortunately, we neglected to take many photos.

                            The Menu:


Borani Esfanaaj (spinach yogurt dip)
Lavash (delicious homemade crackers)
Khoresht Fesenjaan (Chicken with Pomegranate Sauce)
Chelo (Persian Rice with Golden Crust)
Dugh (amazing yogurt drink with herbs)








Everything was delicious, but my favorite was the Dugh, a surprising beverage, with the bitterness of plain yogurt blended with the brightness of fresh mint and sparkling water.
             

Toasting our meal with glasses of Dugh

This meal was inspired by a fabulous book I came across at the Chapman Library, while assisting inspiring young artists as they performed an art installation under the direction of Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. A Taste for Adventure chronicles author Anik See's bicycling journeys to places around the world such as; Malaysia, Mexico, Armenia and, Iran! She provides recipes for each location. Food memoirs are my favorite genre of book...I might have to buy this one.

Lavash & Borani Esfanaaj (can you see the olive oil drizzles and pine nuts? YUM!)

As usual, one recipe proved slightly frustrating, our Persian Rice with Golden Crust never developed the promised "delicious golden crust" that forms on the bottom and is traditionally served to guests. Despite that disappointment, it was still buttery and saffron-y and tasty.

March....er, April...and Australia

G'Day, Robyn!

This month we decided it would be even more fun to make our country meal with friends, so Patrick and I traveled to Robyn and Jake's house to share Australian cuisine.

We were right, cooking together was even better and we got to try more recipes than usual.
This is Robyn.


And, here is the photo of the Sydney Opera House Jake took when he visited Australia!

The Menu
Australian Desert
Damper Bread
Orange Mint Rice Salad
Horseradish Potatoes
Meat Pies
Lamingtons
Tim-Tam Slams

Robyn=Star, Jake=Witty, Patrick= Sexy, Liesl = Bodacious

Parmesan and Olive goodness

Australian Desert
I don't know if this drink is really Australian, but it was all banana-milkshakey and delicious.
It went very well with
Damper Bread, (which, I've read, is a traditional, yeast-less bread first eaten by colonial settlers.) It had the flavor and texture of a savory scone.

We loved the appetizers!

We made meat pies, which have a puff-pastry upper crust and beef in the middle.  We were pretty proud of the home-made crust made with beef drippings for the bottom. Robyn put it all together, Jake and Patrick rolled out the dough, and I gave helpful advice...

Freshly baked Meat Pies

Time to eat!
Our meal featured Orange Mint Rice Salad (I also read that Australians prefer a heartier salad that includes potatoes, rice or some kind of meat.) Orange and mint flavors marry well and the salad was a nice, light accompaniment to the heavier meaty,starchy fare.
Most of our country meals have provided us with one dish whose assembly makes us want to rip out our hair. Horseradish Potatoes proved to be the one for Australia. Horseradish cream attempt #1 failed... the homemade oil and egg emulsion didn't thicken, even with our clever addition of chia seeds to aid the process. We threw it out and started over with store bought mayonnaise. (Probably safer not to eat the raw egg concoction, anyway.) Attempt #2 was much more promising. I liked it way better than potato salad, anyway!

Australians like yummy dessert. Cameron joined us just in time to share Lamingtons and Tim-Tam Slams. Ah, lamingtons... chocolate covered cake rolled in coconut. Thanks, Robyn, for thinking they were a good idea!

For those of you who have never had one, Tim-Tam Slams are right up there with chocolate fondue for being both delicious AND fun.
First, take a Tim-Tam cookie (a little like an E.L. Fudge...)
Next, bite off the top and the bottom.
Hold one end of the cookie in your mouth.
Put the other end in a cup of hot chocolate, or, as we did, milk.
Suck until the cookie becomes an amazing, mushy glob.
Eat.

So nice to share our country- themed with friends. Thanks, Robyn and Jake!

G'Day!

February= Cambodia!

Did you know Cambodian recipes are surprisingly difficult to find? (My library has not even one Cambodian cookbook!) I was finally able to cull together 5 intriguing dishes, resulting in several successful and one semi-disastrous offering.

The Menu:
Tomato Salad 
Ginger Pork with Peanuts Elephant Walk
Cambodian Grilled Eggs
Ginger Bananas with Vanilla Ice Cream

• Tomato Salad...the austere name doesn't hint at the intricate flavors in this dish. Sprinkled with mint and basil and topped with a dressing made from limes, honey, soy sauce and jalapenos, it reminded us of our favorite Chanon Thai dish, Spicy Soft-Shell Crab Salad. (And, burned our mouths and other parts we accidentally touched after chopping the peppers! Be careful...maybe wear gloves.)
• Ginger Pork with Peanuts Elephant Walk...SO DELICIOUS. This dish, with its nice sweetness (6 Tablespoons of sugar!) is a good contrast to the really spicy salad. I could eat this forever.
• Cambodian Grilled Eggs...*Sigh* Rarely do I experience kitchen failures, but this one pretty much got the best of me. First of all, I would like to give props to this amazing website, Global Table Adventure, which puts my "eating around the world" quest to shame. (Look at her map! Mine is on a wall, so you can't actually see it...) From the first step of blowing the eggs out of the shells, to trying to get the egg mixture back in the shells, to exploding steamed egg (which turned an odd green color, by the way,) it was a no-win situation. They tasted okay, but, as Patrick put it, we're counting this one "not worth the effort." (I'm glad we tried it, though!)



Grilled Eggs...

• Caramelized Ginger Bananas with Vanilla Ice Cream... Oh my, LOVE... Gingery, caramely, delicious!

Bananas from Heaven

Verdict for February:

We love Cambodian food! The flavors and textures remind us of our favorite Thai food. Despite all the deliciousness, the French Goat Cheese and Potato Galette remains our favorite in the series...so far...

168 Countries to Go!

Countries From Which We've Had Meals:

• Mexico
• El Salvador
• Peru M.I.A. The owner is soooo nice! Good ceviche
• Argentina
• Morocco Cedars of Lebanon PLEASE try the Chicken Pastilla.
• Senegal

• Ethiopia African Market Delicious meal eaten with your fingers!
• Tanzania
• Ireland
• Spain
• Switzerland

• Austria (Oh, Vienna Bistro, how we miss you!)
• France
• Italy
• Bosnia
• Poland
• Turkey - You can even watch Turkish television while you dine! a la Turca
• Lebanon
• Russia (Homemade borscht and weird ground liver/mushy meat thingy... One of our first countries!)
• Pakistan
• India
• China
• Myanmar (BEST MEAL EVER!) Burma Superstar!!!! Everyone MUST go here and have Tea Leaf Salad and Samusa Soup!

• Thailand Two favorites in Salt Lake; Chanon Thai for delicious ginger tea and Spicy Soft-shell Crab Salad and Tea Rose Diner for the hottest food ever and homemade ice cream (flavors like Orange-Coriander, Malt or Honey-Lavender!)
• Tibet (I count this as a separate country. For the record, Patrick objects)
• Japan
• Philippines

• Indonesia (Jackfruit heaven! Sadly, this cute Portland restaurant no longer exists. But, here is a jackfruit...)